Yale Student Aliza Shvarts Disturbing Abortion Art Project

Aliza Shvarts, an art major at Yale University, is stirring up controversy with her senior art project. Documenting 9 months of repeated artificial inseminations, followed by drug-induced abortions, Shvarts is exhibiting video recordings of the miscarriages, along with preserved collections of blood from the process.

The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

"I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity," Shvarts said. "I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be."

The exhibition will be on public display from April 22 to May 1 at the gallery of Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall on Chapel Street.

Now if you'll excuse me, I had the misfortune of reading this story just after eating lunch. I think I may just lose it.